Chen G.

Yep. That's the one. Sets the mood of the score and the film quite well, much better than the Fox Fanfare. Gibson originally wanted no opening credits, though. He wanted the movie to just open.

I also watched it for the first time that I remember not too long ago. I don't have issues with pacing or flow: I think its very well structued. But I just didn't find myself laughing all that hard. But than that's such a subjective criteria.

I appreciate it if only on the level of the audacity of it. I didn't percieve it as character assasination and really, I think there's an argument to be made that the occasional contrivnce in film, be it in plotting or character decision, can be excused if it pushes the story in an interesting direction. Part of what I didn't appreciate on rewatch was the way Johnson showed us this flashback from two different perspectives: Luke's and Kylo's. But instead of keeping it reasonably ambiguous, he gave a tell-tale sign that Kylo's account is the one that's off the mark, with the use of very hightened, ghoulish makeup on Luke when the scene is shown through Kylo's eyes.

For me, certainly. Nine episodes is long enough.

I need to revisit Titanic, but Braveheart uses the Paramount logos in Israel.

Both Braveheart and Titanic had two distributors: Fox for North America, Paramount for the International market. With Braveheart its especially noteworthy because Horner wrote a prelude that only appears over the Paramount logos.

Why does the pole not include a "hahahahahaha" option?

Nonlinear editing in Star Wars! Novel! 😉

I have to wonder how this idea of using existing footage might bind the filmmaker's hands as far as Leia goes. On the one hand, her presence is important on the level of providing a through-line to the original films; on the other hand, done wrong and the internet will cry out "fan service!" We'll see.

First, I must preface that I hold it to be downright impossible and undesirable to look at film scores from a "purely musical aspect." In that sense, film scores are very much like opera, being that the music was written with and for certain imagery. The two are not substitutes of each other - they augment and complete each other. Now, with Wagner, you can make the argument that the evolution of sound was motivated by the evolution of the story. With Star Wars, the same argument would be considerably more shaky. Part of the issue is that Williams wrote a trilogy, then wrote a trilogy preceding that, and then another one set after his first trilogy. Wagner did not do that. Not to mention that Star Wars is getting fairly longer than the Ring cycle ever was: If I recall correctly, its within the ballpark of 15 hours. Williams' body of work is pushing twenty. Naturely, the more drawn out the work is, the more egregious continuity issues will appear to be. Shore's case is considerably different. His scores merit comparisons to Wagner not only on the level of the leitmotivic structure (which, in both works, is considerably more expansive and complex than in Star Wars) but also on the level of the use of voices which gives it a very operatic flavour inded. Within the Star Wars body of work, only Revenge of the Sith feels operatic in that specific regard.

From Bravheart I could say the main theme, but that’s kind of cheating because it’s a very close relative of “Amazing Grace.” It wasn’t Horner’s fault, though: the script calls for “Amazing Grace.” The main love theme is very memorable, as is - to me - the piece in the scene I linked to: the closest that Wallace gets to have a theme for himself outright.

True, but its still much, much more unified than Williams' Star Wars. That's certainly not to say that Williams' work doesn't have some unifying sense to it. After all, I was to one to put it up as Williams' magnum opus in this thread. But to call it "one work"... At the very least, Wagner had outlined the story of his operas (being both the composer and librettist) such that even if his music underwent stylistic changes, the basic structure of the drama was always in his mind. Williams famously doesn't even read scripts, and even if he did - George Lucas was flying just as blind as Williams was, making up each film as he went along and letting other writers (Kasdan, Brackett) and directors have the reigns in shaping the story, eventually reliquishing it alltogether to Disney, which also didn't entrust this trilogy to any one writer or director. Even in the prequel trilogy, where Lucas was the sole creative force and had at least some of the broad strokes in his mind from the beginning, it seems that Williams never really bothered to ask him as to what turns the story will take next. For instance, regarding the scoring of Anakin and Padme's relationship, Williams said: And about Duel of the Fates, he said: Even if Williams knew where the story was headed, I doubt he would have bothered to foreshadow themes that are to come (nodding to themes from existing scores in the prequels notwithstanding). That's just not how he works. Also, I just find the comparison of the two works kind of unwarranted. Outside of Revenge of the Sith, I'm not a fan of calling these scores "operatic". I had an epiphany of sorts when I read an interview with Williams regarding The Last Jedi where he said that the Star Wars scores are musicals. In my eyes, that's a much more apt parallel than opera or even a symphony. ______________________________ 1 https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/backissues/viewissue.cfm?issueID=74 2 https://youtu.be/lUZmf68rzU8?t=141

Also true. The films don’t feel perfectly cohesive (even within each trilogy there are continuity issues) and so the music can’t, either.

Yeah, I always find thematic transformation superior to "oh, I just wrote a new theme." By creating a new theme through the transformation of an existing theme, some of that theme's associative power rubs onto the new theme, so even though its stated for the first time, it feels like we've heard it before.

I'm down with calling it Williams' magnum opus, in the sense that its his most rich body of work. But I hesitate to call it a single piece in multiple parts. Wagner finished the pieces apart but worked on all of them concurrently. If memory serves me well, he wrote them from Götterdämmerung and back. Hell, he only got the idea to write Das Rheingold after he had an outline of the other three and realized he needed a prelude of sorts. As a result, his work is much more unified than Williams, unfortunately. If you look at Williams scores in the order of the narrative (i.e. starting with The Phantom Menace and going forward, and lets even insert "Adventures of Han" before "A New Hope", for that matter) and try to make sense of the thematic progression, there are a few too many continuity "ticks" to overlook. Some of those are due to large time gaps between trilogies, some due to Williams (and Lucas) making it up as they go along, and some "just 'cause". For instance, he embeds the Imperial March into Anakin's theme only for the former to be all but abandoned at the end of the first score, he continues to the develop the march but then discontinues its use for the entirety of the "fourth" score and "replaces" it with a shorter motif, itself never to appear again. He writes a theme for the Droids - the only characters appearing across all nine films - and only really uses it in the fifth entry. He writes specific themes for climactic duels and for funeral scenes in the first three scores which make no appearance for similar scenes in the later scores; several themes undergo a major change in association, as well: the Rebel Fanfare turns into a Millennium Falcon theme, The Force theme turns "into" Ben's theme and back, he writes a suite (Adventures of Han) for one of the most prevalent characters in the series for it to not appear in any of the actual scores. He also changes the sound itself: the "first" three scores are more percussion and choir heavy, use more rhythmic material and shorter motives, they're orchestrated differently; the "next" three scores function more like musicals, with long-lined themes, and even compositions for standalone setpieces (such as the Asteroid Field) merit this song-like melodic structure, before Williams returns to a sound more like the "first" three pieces, only more dialed back for some reason. There's a notable change of orchestra and recording studio along the way, he changes the choral ensemble multiple times, the overall size of the ensemble varies greatly between entries, the deployment of synth and special instruments is not consistent across all eight scores, the mix is different, etc.. There's also the issue, inherent to the nature of the sequel trilogy's conception, in which Williams' work reaches its climax (in Return of the Jedi), only to begin anew for The Force Awakens going forward. Watch Williams' "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" and try to figure out how the sequel trilogy will fit in there. Hint: it can't.

And this very figure develops into the one that introduces (and underpins) the Luke and Leia theme into the score in "Brother and Sister." Adams labels it, aptly enough, "The Brother and Sister motif". Yeah, its just part of the way these themes are written. Unlike what @Incanus has pointed out, which is that a fragment of Across the Stars (and yes, one could easily make an argument for this fragment - or the whole second part of the theme, really - being a separate thematic identity) transforms into the Lament theme: That may be Williams most effective thematic transformation yet. I also feel like there are fragments of the Qui Gon funeral music (which itself becomes a general funeral or mourning theme in this episode) are embedded into the lament as well. There are moments, such as 2:53, where you can almost sing along "Madhurah Svepnah, Ghorah-Damah."

Well, all the themes that hint at an underlying weakness in a character have this kind of arpeggiation (clearly derived from the Weakness and Redemption motif), be it Thranduil's isolationism, Gollum's enslavement to the Ring, the Dwarves' bitterness over their misfortunes. Even the old, tormented Thrain merit that kind of arpeggio under the Erebor theme.

Its finished, then. Braveheart wins!

Yes! Either that or “Durin’s Folk”. It’s a Dwarvish story much more than it is Bilbo’s, which I prefer. I don’t need every tentpole blockbuster to churn out the Hero’s Journey. But honestly I don’t put much stock into titles. They’re more a marketing tool than they are a testament to the content of the film: they’re part of the brand. If they were an indication of content, Infinity Wars would have been called ”Thanos”; Same here: “The Hobbit” is just a more recognizable title. Hell, even “The Lord of the Rings” isn’t about the actual Lord of the Rings.

I suppose if you intellectualize it too much it would seem out-of-character, but it’s such a brief part of the film, it’s really not warranted. When I first saw it, I was impressed, purely by how balsy Johnson was to go this far with Luke. Its also the first attempt in these films to craft anything even remotely non-linear in terms of storytelling, which was refreshing.

🤣 But seriously, the score to Braveheart is a curious thing, for me. On the one hand, its mostly just Horner doing a big "Golden-Era Hollywood" score. Nothing too sophisticated thematically or otherwise. On that level, I don't suppose I would have loved it as much as I do, had it not been attached to such a masterful film. On the other hand, it is a succesful score in that it weds that "Hollywood" sound to Horner's celtic schtick as well as with synth and more contemporary action music (big drums) which really fits the brutality of the action sequences. On all those fronts, it works (for me) better than Titanic. The celtic elements are more appropriate here, the synth fits in better (namely, because its used less for choir and more for atmospherics) and the action music works better by virtue of being woven throughout the score rather than popping up at the midpoint, as it does in Titanic. I also don't believe in completely separating the film from the score: it was written to accompany the film and - especially in a movie like Braveheart where the score wasn't particularly fiddled with - the film is the ultimate presentation of the score. As such, I like Braveheart significantly more than Titanic and that impression inevitably rubs off onto the scores of each film. None of this is to say that I don't really like Titanic, score and film. But, I mean, its friggin' Braveheart, come on...

Agreed, although it feels stretched, like butter spread over too much bread. I've said my piece about the later two films (which I, not unlike many others, happen to like better) but with regards to the Bag End sequences in An Unexpected Journey I'll say this: I don't think the film's pacing issues lay there. Generally, long first acts aren't the cause of pacing issues. think The Fellowship of the Ring takes about as much as An Unexpected Journey (around forty minutes), Star Wars taken 47 minutes, Braveheart takes just over an hour; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly even longer, which is to say nothing of the old epics of the sixties. I think audiences will be willing to sit through a lot of slow set-up, if they have good reason to think that its going to get more exciting when it kicks off. This is especially true of films that feature a strong cold opening like this one (again, not unlike The Fellowship). It helps that the Bag End sequences are among the most beautifully-shot parts of the series: the longest take of the series, at a minute-and-a-half, is is here; and the introduction to the individual Dwarves (its their story just as much as it is Bilbo's) is very economical indeed. The real issue is when the second act begins and time after time fails to get off of the ground. The company has taken to the road, the audience expects it to get more interesting...and it doesn't. The Azog bits have to be in there, as do the Radagast stuff although I would have tried to shorten the latter considerably for the theatrical release. I think the issue is a sequence that's actually from the book: the three Trolls. Its not that its redundant - there's plenty of set-up there (Bilbo's sneaking skills, the swords, the Dwarves' fighting skills, the idea of a "darker power") - but I think this first leg of the journey where not only is the mountain still too remote a prospect but the chase with Azog isn't on yet - should have been breezed through as quickely as possible for the theatrical release.

And it resurfaces in The Battle of the Five Armies, albeit in a minor dosage.

I didn’t say it doesn’t resurface later. In fact I did say its sometimes still a “hit-or-miss” But thankfully Alfrid’s screentime is brief enough (about four minutes in a nearly three-hour film) that it’s a minor issue for me, however horrible his “comedy” is. Not to mention that he does meet his end.

I don’t think they “stopped bothering”. To my mind, it was intentional: starting light and Bilbo-centric, and than going darker and re-orienting towards Thorin. Like I said: there’s an escalation there. In the commentary of An Unexpected Journey, Jackson says (aptly enough) that the kind of comedy which is prevalent in that film is going to go away in the second and third film. By the midpoint of The Desolation of Smaug (the original second film) it’s gone entirely, which honestly is a good thing. Its still a hit-and-miss sometimes, but because it’s Thorin’s story, the tonal choices are for the most part motivated and, to me, satisfying.